Resultant Set of Policy Tools and Settings

This section describes the tools and settings that are associated with Resultant Set of Policy (RSoP), a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in that administrators use to report and plan cumulative effects of Group Policy.

Resultant Set of Policy Tools

The following tools are associated with Resultant Set of Policy.

RSoP Extension

Category

The Resultant Set of Policy (RSoP) extension is an MMC snap-in included in the same binary as the Group Policy Object Editor (gpedit.dll). The RSoP extension consists of a planning mode service, and a logging mode service. These two services correspond to the Group Policy Modeling and Group Policy Results nodes, respectively, in Group Policy Management Console (GPMC).

Version compatibility

The RSoP feature, which consists of two services, requires a Windows Server 2003 domain controller for the planning mode, but requires only a Windows Server 2003 schema for remote logging delegation. A Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) namespace, Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM), on which each computer policy has processed, is required for logging mode. This namespace is present in Windows XP and later.

The RSoP snap-in displays RSoP data provided by one or both of its two services, depending on domain controller operating system and forest schema. The RSoP snap-in requires Windows XP or later. RSoP logging is always processed on the targeted client computer. For remote logging, the RSoP data is generated on the remote computer and displayed on the client computer running the RSoP snap-in.

Gpresult.exe: Group Policy Results

Category

This command line tool displays RSoP for a user or computer. You can use gpresult to see what policy is in effect and to troubleshoot problems on computers running Windows XP and later.

Version compatibility

The gpresult.exe that ships with Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 family is completely different than the original version of gpresult.exe that shipped in the Windows 2000 Resource Kit. The newer version cannot be used to view policy information for computers running Windows 2000.

Resultant Set of Policy Group Policy Settings

This section describes Resultant Set of Policy specific settings. Using these settings, the administrator can determine which MMC snap-ins and RSoP services are permitted for the GPO. For a complete reference of these settings, see Group Policy Settings Reference for Windows Server 2003.

If you enable this setting, the snap-in is permitted. If you disable the setting, the snap-in is prohibited.

If this setting is not configured, the setting of the “Restrict users to the explicitly permitted list of snap-ins” setting determines whether this snap-in is permitted or prohibited.

For more information about Group Policy settings, see the Group Policy Settings Reference for Windows Server 2003.

Resultant Set of Policy WMI Classes

There are two categories of WMI namespaces: computer and user. Each user has its own RSoP namespace based on the user’s Security Identifier (SID). Administrators can automate RSoP using scripting and WMI classes. The following table lists the WMI classes associated with RSoP.

RSoP WMI Classes

Class Name

Namespaces

Version Compatibility

RsopLoggingModeProvider

ROOT\RSOP

Windows XP

Windows Server 2003

RsopPlanningModeProvider

ROOT\RSOP

Windows XP

Windows Server 2003

(Windows Server 2003 Domain Controller Required)

In addition, administrators can automate RSoP using the IGPMRSOP interface included with GPMC interfaces. The IGPMRSOP interface provides methods that support making RSoP queries in both logging and planning mode.

Related Information

The following resources contain additional information that is relevant to this section.